Soft Confessions, Part 2

Claire’s favorite time in the Inner Gardens was late morning, when the dew had burned away but the heat of the day hadn’t yet sent the bugs into hiding. The whole place was a riddle of smells and motion: sharp green leaves, wet stone, crushed blossoms, the dart and flick of sun between high hedges. She sat on a low stone bench near the center, tail curled primly around her ankles, notebook in her lap, just… existing.

The world was a hundred little whispers—rustle of wind, the hollow tick of a beetle against bark, the stray call of a bird in the distance. It was all noise, but not the kind that overwhelmed. She could separate it here, could filter the world into manageable streams. Sometimes she closed her eyes just to listen.

Mostly, though, she thought about Andy.

She ran the memory of last night again, the feel of his hands on her shoulders, the way he let her guide everything, never pushing or rushing. She remembered the soft sound he made when she kissed him, like he was more surprised than anything else. She remembered waking in the middle of the night with his breath on the back of her neck, his arm draped over her, his warmth like a secret shared in the dark. And then, when Erin arrived—how gentle they’d both been, the care with which they folded her into the tangle of sheets and bodies.

It was more than she’d hoped for. She replayed it, looking for flaws, and found none that mattered.

She was deep in her notebook, making a list of things she wanted to try for next time—everything from “practice kissing for more than five seconds without panicking” to “learn to say I love you in ASL, just in case”—when she heard the soft click of heels on the garden path.

She looked up. Arabella glided between the hedges, red dress catching every glint of light, green eyes focused straight ahead. She didn’t look at Claire until she was almost beside her, and even then she just nodded, as if to say, may I sit?

Claire patted the bench, careful to leave a polite distance.

Arabella lowered herself with a dancer’s poise, crossing her legs at the ankle. For a moment, neither said anything. Then Arabella turned, the full **** of her attention landing on Claire.

“May I say,” she began, her voice bright but soft, “how proud I am of you?”

Claire blinked, unsure.

Arabella’s smile was genuine, not the practiced hostess version. “Last night was a great act of generosity. Not every woman would do what you did. Especially not the first time.”

Claire’s ears flicked. She wrote in her notebook: It felt right. We both needed him.

Arabella peered at the words, then nodded. “And two days ago, you helped Sam with the IVA. She has a better chance now, because of you.”

Claire shrugged, then wrote: She deserves to be happy. We all do.

Arabella laughed, and it was a real laugh, not the social kind. “You do. You’re braver than you know, Claire. You’ve always been.” Her eyes softened. “If I’m honest, I didn’t expect it from you, not so soon.”

Claire didn’t know how to answer, so she just looked at Arabella, ears at half-mast, waiting.

Arabella glanced upward, as if searching for the right words. “May I ask you something?” she said.

Claire nodded.

“What do you think of the Harem Hotel, as a… program?” Arabella’s eyes never left her. “You’ve watched the tapes. What’s your take?”

Claire chewed her pen, then wrote:

It ranges from horrific sadist’s dream to pleasant, even poetic, group orgy. Sometimes both.

She turned the notebook so Arabella could see.

The hostess’s face split into a wide grin. “I like your honesty,” she said. “It’s a fair assessment.”

Claire tapped her pen, thinking, then wrote: Is our season going to be one or the other?

Arabella’s mood shifted. The smile fell away, replaced by a look that was almost… regretful? “I hope for something new,” she said, voice lower. “But the world has its patterns. And us old Hosts… for us, those patterns are engraved in our bones. It’s hard to break them.”

Claire was about to write again, but Arabella stopped her with a raised hand.

“We talked about Bastet before. Have you heard her story?” she asked. “Egyptian cat-headed goddess, protector of women and secrets.”

Claire nodded, vaguely.

“As Bubastis, she was the only goddess who ever outwitted her creators,” Arabella said. “They made her to be a warrior, but she became something else. She kept her own counsel. Guarded her own heart, and the hearts of others.”

Arabella looked at Claire with a searching intensity. “Do you feel up to guarding a secret, Claire?”

Claire’s ears went flat in surprise. She considered the question, then wrote, large and neat:

Yes.

Arabella’s smile returned, faint but bright. “Good,” she said. “I’ll tell you when the time is right. For now, just watch. You may see things others do not.”

Claire nodded, heart thumping.

Arabella stood. “Thank you for the company,” she said. “I find your quiet refreshing.”

Claire tilted her head, a silent question.

Arabella’s eyes twinkled. “Most women talk at me. You listen.”

She vanished down the path, leaving only the faintest trace of rose and something deeper.

Claire sat for a while, watching the birds flit from branch to branch. She felt the weight of the not-quite-secret in her chest, heavy but not bad.

It was going to be an interesting day.

Chloe waited in the main lobby for nearly an hour, pretending not to count the minutes by scrolling through menu screens on the Commissary terminal. She tried sitting on the cold marble bench, then standing by the window to watch the rippling fan of banana trees outside, then pacing the seam between rug and stone. None of it made the time pass faster, or made her less aware of the dull, battery-acid feeling building up in her chest.

She saw Andy's reflection before she heard him, as the elevator door whooshed open. Now he wore sweatpants and a faded MIT t-shirt, the letters so thin they looked like they might rub off if she stared at them too hard. He wasn't looking at her. He was moving through the motions of an afternoon walk, like a ghost programmed for minimum human interaction.

Chloe almost let him pass. She almost gave in to the voice in her head saying not today, maybe later, maybe never. But as he neared, she stepped into his path, chin raised just enough to make her knees shake. "Can we talk?" she managed, voice so small she doubted he'd even hear it.

He blinked, startled, as if noticing her for the first time. "Hey," he said. Pause. "Sure."

Chloe glanced around, embarrassed at how loud the word seemed in the huge, empty space. "Not here." She hesitated, then nodded her head toward the glass doors leading out to the back patio, the footpath that dropped down to the sand. "I just—outside, if that's okay?"

Andy nodded. He followed her out, neither of them speaking as the doors whispered shut behind them. The air was a little chilly, and the sharp salt of the ocean cut through the perfume of cut grass and flowers. Chloe wanted to fill the silence with something—anything—but every word she rehearsed sounded worse than the last.

They walked in parallel, not quite touching, until the concrete gave way to the packed sugar of the upper beach. Andy stopped, ran a hand through his hair. "What’s up, Chloe?"

She **** herself to look at him. "You’ve been avoiding me."

He flinched. She regretted the bluntness, but it was too late to reel it back. "I thought maybe you were busy," she added, softer, "but then I saw you at breakfast and you just… looked through me. I—if I did something wrong, can you just tell me?"

Andy’s mouth worked, but no sound came out. He looked everywhere but her, eyes skittering over the horizon, the row of weathered palapas, the distant, foam-edged line where the water met the reef.

Chloe pressed on, because if she didn't, she knew she’d never get another shot. "Do you hate me now?" The words came out raw, all the polish and preamble burned away.

Andy inhaled, slow and shaky, like he was preparing to take a punch. "No," he said, but it was the weakest lie she'd ever heard. "I don’t hate you. I just… I needed time. That's all."

Chloe stood in the wind, hugging her own arms. She thought about the note she’d written Andy yesterday, the one she’d shredded and dropped into the kitchen incinerator because it sounded too needy, too self-pitying. "If it’s about—about before," she said, "if you want me gone, just say it. I can keep to myself. I don’t want to make this harder for you."

He looked at her then, really looked, and his face twisted with something she couldn’t read: sadness, or anger, or maybe just pure exhaustion. "It’s not you," he said. "It’s me being a coward. I haven’t wanted to talk to anyone about—"

He cut himself off, and for a second Chloe wondered if he’d walk away.

Instead, he sat down right there on the sand, just above the high-tide line, and pulled his knees to his chest. He patted the space beside him, and Chloe hesitated, then sat, folding herself small and tidy.

The wind curled Chloe’s hair across her eyes, and she let it. She wanted to hide, but she waited for him to speak, holding herself still as possible.

Andy’s voice came out tight, barely audible over the waves. "There’s something I should have told you a long time ago. About Laura. About that day."

A sudden chill ran through Chloe, though she wasn’t sure why. She remembered every detail of that day—the weird, nervous thrill of being asked behind the gym, the press of his lips against hers, the brief, fluttering guilt, the embarrassment when he had gently but firmly pushed her away, and told her he didn’t feel the same way. She remembered what happened after, the sickening jolt when she heard about Laura, the numb, slippery panic as she pieced together what that meant for everyone. But she'd never once heard Andy talk about it.

He exhaled, a long stream of air. "When she learned about the kiss... she thought it was… a betrayal. She made this huge deal of it, and I didn’t get why. It was like she believed we had done a lot more, and that I had been more than happy to be part of it. To her, it was… it was everything."

He dug his fingers into the sand. "She called me to meet her at the footbridge. Said she needed to talk. She was crying, and she said she didn’t want to see me again if I could do that to her. To us."

Chloe’s ears rang. She knew the story, the official one, the one everyone repeated: that Andy lost his balance, that Laura tried to save him, that the river was running too fast and nobody could have helped. But she never knew the details. Not like this.

Andy’s eyes were red now, but dry. "I tried to stop her, when she turned away. I tried to grab her arm. But I slipped, and I… I fell." He pressed his hand to his eyes. "She went in after me. Didn’t hesitate, even though she thought I had betrayed everything in her. The water was freezing, and my legs cramped. She pushed me to shore, but the currents… When I realized what was happening, I saw her hand. I tried to jump back in. But I couldn’t reach her in time."

He made a soft, animal sound, not quite a sob. "And ever since then, I’ve been replaying it in my head. Thinking if I hadn’t kissed you, or if I’d just told her the truth, or if—"

He shook his head, hard, as if to clear it. "I’m sorry," he said. "I didn’t mean to dump this on you. You don’t deserve that."

Chloe couldn’t breathe. She stared at her knees, at the splotches of sand on her bare shins, at the pale outline where the sun hadn’t reached in years. She waited for the world to make sense, but it didn’t.

She tried to speak, but the words got tangled. "If I hadn’t kissed you, Laura would still be alive," she whispered.

Andy shook his head, but she barely saw him. "No," he said. "It wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault."

She remembered the heat of the kiss, the pride she’d felt when Nina and Myra congratulated her, the feeling of having taken the initiative, even for a second. She remembered the rush of shame that followed, and how she never, ever talked about it again.

"I’m sorry," Chloe said, not knowing what else to offer. "I’m so sorry."

Andy grabbed her hand. His grip was hard, ****. "It’s not on you," he said. "Laura was… she was broken in ways none of us understood. I don’t know how she found out. But I—I should have done more. Perhaps if I had said something different to her. If I had let her go, and tried to explain myself later, instead of trying to stop her. If I had been able to swim better… I should have saved her."

Chloe’s eyes blurred with tears, but she held tight to his hand. "I never told her, I promise," she said, the truth coming out so fast it tripped on itself. "I never told anyone. I liked you, I wanted you to be my boyfriend. I was an idiot, and I didn’t realize what you and Laura meant to each other. I thought—I thought she’d never find out. I didn’t want to hurt her."

Andy stared at her, unblinking. "Wait. You didn’t tell Laura?"

Chloe shook her head, a miserable, shaky arc. "No. I—after, I wanted to say something, but then she was just gone. I never got to—"

She broke off, the words dissolving into sobs.

Andy’s face went slack. He sat back, the realization hitting him like a wave. "All these years," he said, "I thought you told her. I thought you—"

He didn’t finish. He just let the silence fill the space, both of them hanging in it, suspended between regret and revelation.

After a long minute, Andy let out a strangled laugh, half-hysterical. "Jesus. We were just kids," he said. "We didn’t know anything."

Chloe wiped her nose on the back of her hand. "We’re still kids," she said, and it was so true it made her want to scream.

Andy pulled her closer, and for the first time since the accident, Chloe let herself be held. She sobbed, and he let her, his own eyes squeezed shut against the brightness of the world.

They stayed like that, side by side on the sand, until Chloe’s tears ran out. The ocean kept crashing, uncaring, the only constant in a world that refused to stand still.

When she could speak again, Chloe said, "You don’t have to forgive me. I don’t even forgive myself."

Andy’s lips twisted in a sad smile. "I don’t know if I can forgive myself, either. But… I don’t hate you. I couldn’t. Not for this."

She breathed, a shuddering, shaky thing, and finally let go.

He looked out at the water, his voice low. "Maybe it would have happened anyway. Maybe I would have let her down in some other way. Maybe not, and she and I would be married by now. But… I’m tired of living in the past. She’s still with me, I carry her wherever I go, but I want to try to live now. With the people I still have."

Chloe nodded, because there was nothing else to say.

They sat until the sun slid behind a cloud and the first, sharp grains of evening wind needled their skin. When Andy stood, Chloe followed, feeling lighter and heavier at the same time.

As they walked back toward the hotel, Chloe reached for his hand. He let her hold it.